INCLUDED HERE ARE IMAGES OF MOVIE STARS, BATHING BEAUTIES, AND PIN-UPS OF TH E 1920s. THE DATE IS A BIT DECEPTIVE SINCE MANY OF THE IMAGES – ESPECIALLY THE MACK SENNETT COMEDIES – DATE TO THE TEENS, AND I DO NOT HAVE ACCURATE DATING FOR MANY IMAGES. THE LATE TEENS AND EARLY TWENTIES ARE CLOSE ENOUGH IN SPIRIT TO BE INCLUDED TOGETHER. AS YOU MAY READILY SEE IN THE IMAGES, WOMEN OF THE ERA HAD A SPECIAL SENSE OF CHARM AND GRACE AND WHIMSY. FROM THE DRAMATIC LIGHTING AND STYLES AND MELODRAMATIC POSES OF FAMOUS MOVIE STARS TO THE CARE TAKEN IN POSING HANDS AND FEET OF THE PIN-UPS AND TO THEIR WHIMSICAL COSTUMES THERE IS A CAPTIVATING AND PLAYFUL, ALMOST ANTIC, SENSE OF STYLE. HAIR STYLING DEPARTED DRAMATICALLY FROM THE EARLY PART OF THE CENTURY, AND EYE MAKE-UP PLAYED A SPECIAL ROLE IN THE MELODRAMTIC AND COMEDIC IMAGES. IN GENERAL, PIN-UPS OF THE TIME WERE POSITIVELY CHASTE BY LATER STANDARDS. AMONG THE FACE TYPES WHICH WERE POPULAR, I NOTE PARTICULARLY THE RENOIR-TYPES – HARRIET HAMMOND, MARIE PREVOST, MARY THURMOND, AND PHYLLIS HAVER – WITH THEIR SWEET SMILES AND FULLER FACES THAN WE SEE IN TODAY'S ACTRESSES AND MODELS .

John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. John regards it as a badge of honor to have left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the country embarked on the pointless murder of something like 3 million Vietnamese in their own land because they embraced the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling “the peaceable kingdom.”

John’s writing appears regularly on many Internet sites. He has been translated into at least ten languages and has been regularly translated into Italian and Spanish. Several of his essays have been published in book collections, including two college texts. He has published a book, The Decline of the American Empire and the Rise of China as a Global Power, published by Constable and Robinson, London. John also writes book reviews.

Apart from his writing since retiring from the oil industry, John has taught university courses in economics, done a good deal of private tutoring, served as a professional newspaper restaurant reviewer (he likes cooking), followed his favorite hobby of photography, and created a popular family of image blogs on the Internet.

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Hi John – I have really enjoyed looking through your images. Hollywwod of the 1920s/1930s has long been a favourite of mine. The photographers of that era certainly knew what they were doing. I will regularly check back with your pages. – Frank